The metallic tang of the espresso still lingered, a ghost of a jolt, as the screen flickered to life, showing the benign, slightly bemused faces of the ‘Innovation Council’. I watched their expressions, or lack thereof, track the arc of my presentation – a presentation, mind you, that held the promise of not just a new product line, but an entirely new way of engaging our audience. The silence afterward wasn’t contemplative; it was… digestive. As if they’d just consumed a meal and were now waiting for the bill. “Thank you, very interesting,” the Chair finally droned, a phrase polished smooth by a thousand forgotten proposals. “We’ll take it under advisement.” Just like that, the air went out of the room. My innovative idea, carefully nurtured for the past 29 days, became another data point in their bureaucratic black hole.

The core frustration isn’t just about a lost idea; it’s about the insidious way such committees function as organizational black holes for accountability. They exist, it seems, not to make decisions, but to diffuse the responsibility for not making them. Every bold concept, every spark of genuine creativity, gets funneled into this process, only to emerge, if it emerges at all, as a watered-down, risk-averse shadow of its former self. I’ve seen it happen 9 times out of 10, probably more like 49 times if I’m honest with myself.

A Case Study in Stagnation

Consider Casey Z., an industrial color matcher I once knew. Casey had this uncanny ability to discern minute variations in pigment, to see shades that to my untrained eye were identical. They proposed a radical new system for quality control, one that promised to reduce material waste by nearly 19 percent, saving the company upwards of $979,000 annually. It wasn’t just a good idea; it was a brilliantly simple one, born from years of close observation of the very process it sought to improve. Casey, being a meticulous individual, had done their homework. They had data points, proof of concept, and even testimonials from the production floor. The presentation to the ‘Process Improvement Steering Committee’ was flawless. I remember watching Casey, glowing with the conviction of someone who truly believed in what they were offering. The committee members, a collection of VPs and department heads, nodded along, occasionally interjecting with questions that sounded more like attempts to find fault than to understand. The meeting ended, as they always do, with polite thanks and the promise of ‘further review’.

Days turned into weeks, then months. Casey would follow up, politely at first, then with increasing urgency. Each time, the response was a variation of “it’s still under consideration,” or “we’re gathering additional perspectives.” The idea wasn’t rejected, mind you. It was simply… absorbed. Assimilated into the bureaucratic ether, never to be heard from again in its original, impactful form. This wasn’t a failure of the idea; it was a failure of the system. A system designed, whether consciously or not, to prevent anything genuinely disruptive from ever seeing the light of day. It ensures that only the safest, most diluted, and least effective ideas survive, because anything truly innovative inherently carries a degree of risk. And risk, in these structures, is the ultimate contaminant.

My own mistake, one I’ve made repeatedly over the past 29 years, was believing that the intrinsic value of an idea would somehow magically grant it passage. I used to think if the numbers were solid, if the benefits were undeniable, that it would cut through the red tape. I was wrong. The value of an idea is often inversely proportional to the number of people who need to approve it. Each additional set of eyes, each new department that needs to ‘weigh in’, adds another layer of resistance, another opportunity for dilution or outright stagnation. It’s like throwing a pebble into a pond; the ripples spread, but the pebble itself quickly sinks from view.

This isn’t to say all committees are inherently evil. Some, few and far between, are actually constructive. They have clear mandates, empowered members, and a genuine desire to facilitate progress. But the ‘steering committee’ or ‘innovation council’ that acts as a graveyard for ambition? Those are the organizational equivalent of a black hole, sucking in valuable resources – time, energy, and brilliant concepts – and emitting nothing but a faint bureaucratic hum. They create an environment where innovation struggles to breathe, where the very act of proposing something new becomes a risky endeavor, not because the idea itself is risky, but because the process around it is designed to be a gauntlet.

The Illusion of Consensus

It’s a bizarre dance, really. We pay lip service to ‘innovation,’ creating departments and titles specifically for it, only to then shackle those efforts with processes that guarantee their demise. It’s a contradiction I’ve wrestled with for a long time, often feeling a low-grade hum of frustration in the back of my skull, a feeling not unlike the brain freeze I got from a too-quick scoop of ice cream just last week. That sudden, sharp pang, then a dull ache as the cold recedes. The organizational equivalent lingers much, much longer.

When good ideas repeatedly vanish into the committee void, people stop bringing them forward. They learn to self-censor, to aim lower, to propose only what they believe will be palatable to the lowest common denominator of organizational risk appetite. What kind of progress can truly be made when the default setting is ‘safe’ rather than ‘transformative’? We talk about cultivating a culture of innovation, but what we often build are elaborate filtration systems designed to strain out anything that might genuinely challenge the status quo. It creates a quiet cynicism, a belief that the system is rigged, not maliciously, but structurally. A committee of 9 people, for example, rarely represents 9 distinct voices pushing for progress; more often, it represents 9 opportunities for ‘yes, but’ or ‘let’s think about this further.’

This dynamic isn’t limited to large corporations either. I’ve seen smaller organizations fall into the same trap, believing that consensus-building always equates to the best decision. But true consensus often means compromise, and compromise, when it comes to truly innovative ideas, can often mean death by a thousand cuts. The original vision, the daring leap, gets whittled down, revised, and re-revised until it’s barely recognizable, if it exists at all. It’s not about making tough decisions; it’s about making no decision at all, while still appearing to be diligently engaged in the decision-making process. The paper trail might look robust, but the actual progress made is often negligible, amounting to just 0.9% of what was originally hoped for.

The Path Forward: Fewer Committees, More Courage

My perspective has shifted, hardened perhaps, by these experiences. I’ve come to see these committees less as a forum for deliberation and more as a deliberate delaying tactic, a sophisticated way to manage change by effectively preventing it. It’s a comfortable delusion for those who staff them, offering the illusion of activity without the burden of actual consequence. The blame for inaction can be spread so thin across 9 or more individuals that no single person ever truly owns it. It’s a perfect design for avoiding accountability.

What’s needed isn’t more committees, but fewer. What’s needed are empowered individuals, clear lines of authority, and a genuine embrace of risk. Not reckless risk, but the kind of calculated risk that accompanies any true forward movement. The kind of risk that understands that sometimes, the safest thing to do is to be bold. Otherwise, we’re left with a perpetual state of ‘under advisement,’ where the future is endlessly debated but never quite arrives. The ultimate irony is that these committees, ostensibly created to ensure organizational stability, often contribute to stagnation, making organizations brittle and slow to adapt in a world that demands constant, agile evolution. It’s a lesson I’m still learning, still internalizing, even after 39 years of witnessing it unfold. The real goal should be to create systems where good ideas are celebrated, not sent to die a slow, bureaucratic death. We need to measure outcomes, not just activity. We need to distinguish between genuine strategic thinking and the mere performance of it.